Latest news with #MeatLoaf
Irish Independent
02-06-2025
- Sport
- Irish Independent
North End United boss Gary Dempsey happy to finish rollercoaster season on high
North End United manager Gary Dempsey may not have a whole lot in common with late American rocker Meat Loaf, but the feeling after Sunday's Wexford FC Cup victory was two out of three ain't bad. Having won the Wexford Premier Division title and fallen short against Fairview Rangers in the FAI Junior Cup final, the Sky Blues really wanted to regain that winning feeling as they took on holders Forth Celtic in the Wexford FC Cup decider.
Press and Journal
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Press and Journal
Meat Loaf tribute act leaves the Aberdeen audience 'All Revved Up'
There's a fine line between homage and impersonation. Heaven Can Wait, the Meat Loaf tribute act currently touring the UK, knows exactly where to walk it. Big vocals, high drama, and more than a few raised eyebrows. The show knows exactly what it is, and in Aberdeen on Wednesday night it delivered everything the crowd came for. More than three years on from Meat Loaf's passing, his music still has the power to fill a theatre and stir a crowd which is a testament to just how deeply it connected. Taking on Meat Loaf is no small feat – literally. It's not just about hitting the notes. It's about channelling that wild-eyed, operatic melodrama that made him such a one-off. Frontman Lee Brady is a brave soul, stepping into the spotlight with the swagger and stamina needed to power through an epic Jim Steinman setlist. And to his credit, he delivers. No one can truly be Meat Loaf, but Brady finds the theatrical core and runs with it. During two 45 minute sets he's backed by a rock-solid band of seasoned UK musicians, including female vocalist Kerry Carlton, handling everything from Paradise by the Dashboard Light to Dead Ringer for Love. This wasn't just a karaoke night in wigs; there was proper musicianship on display. Some music fans can be a bit sniffy about these shows, but it's worth noting that many players split their time between tributes and original projects. Far from stifling creativity, often gigs like this help fund it. The setlist is exactly what it needs to be. We got the big Bat Out of Hell hitters, along with some deep cuts. The show leans into the over-the-top drama that made these songs iconic. It's ridiculous, of course, but that's exactly the point. A quick nod, too, to the venue. The Tivoli Theatre is one of Aberdeen's hidden gems. Rich in heritage and with an intimate feel, it's a perfect match for a show built on connection and emotion rather than sheer scale. The all-seated setup perhaps encouraged a reserved response from the polite Aberdeen audience. The crowd, mostly folks who were around when Bat Out of Hell first came screaming out of radios nearly half a century ago, took some coaxing before they got up and let loose during the second half. In the end, Heaven Can Wait isn't trying to replace the original. It's trying to keep the fire burning. And for Wednesday night's Aberdeen crowd, it did. If you came looking for subtlety, you were in the wrong century. But if you came looking for a rock opera dream of leather, heartbreak and passion, you'd do anything for this show. It's no surprise that it's set to return next year. If you enjoyed this story, you may also like:
USA Today
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Eric Church gets candid about music, politics and how Vegas festival shooting changed him
Eric Church gets candid about music, politics and how Vegas festival shooting changed him Show Caption Hide Caption Country singer Eric Church talks about his love for Western North Carolina Country singer Eric Church talks about his love for Western North Carolina, hard hit by Tropical Storm Helene, during a trip to Banner Elk Oct. 31, 2024. If you're talking to Eric Church, you've found a steadfast spirit devoted to the resonance of music. He isn't interested in churning out quick hits or viral bait for social media. He wants to make music that matters. His just-released album, 'Evangeline vs. the Machine,' his first since 2021, is flooded with meaning despite only being 36 minutes across eight songs In the opening 'Hands of Time,' Church, who turns 48 on May 3, acknowledges the realities of aging with a wink by namechecking songs from AC/DC, Bob Marley, Meat Loaf and other artists who spoke to him in his youth. The album's title spotlights the battle between technology's soullessness and a creative muse, which he explains in the song 'Evangeline' ('Take me down to the water/dunk my head into the river/raise your hands, all hail rock 'n' roll'). 'The way people consume music, it puts chains on creativity,' Church says from his home in Nashville. 'The more machines involved in our lives, whether tech or phones or AI, the less life we're able to experience.' Church will bring his omnipresent dark glasses and his new round of rock-rooted country songs along with favorites such as 'Smoke a Little Smoke," 'Springsteen,' and 'Drink in My Hand' to arenas around the country starting Sept. 12 in Pittsburgh. Tickets for the Free the Machine tour, with guests Elle King, Marcus King Band and Wesley Godwin, are on sale at 10 a.m. local time on May 9 via The concerts, Church says, will 'start out in a big way and move to me and a guitar … go from big to small.' In a thoughtful conversation, Church elaborated why he writes albums for his '10-year-old self,' is 'bored' by the chaos of politics and why he has no regrets after last year's polarizing Stagecoach performance. More: AC/DC storms back on Power Up tour, the band's first US trek in nearly a decade Question: Both 'Evangeline' and 'Hands of Time' have some great classic song references. Are those songs also about the importance of music in your life? Answer: One thousand percent. Music is the way I've dealt with anything good or bad in my life. I'm a fan first. Music was this siren for me at an early age and has always been the thing I've leaned on when I've had struggles, devastation, triumphs. A lot of those inspirational artists show up on this album. You think about the way they committed themselves to their art and I see that lacking today, that care and thoughtfulness. Do you think it's because the process of putting out music has changed? I do. A lot of artists nowadays, you write a song on Tuesday and put it out Friday. There's this flooding the zone. I'm an album kid and I still know it's the right way. We're going through a period that a lot of people aren't listening to an album front to back. I see this with my kids that music becomes something happening in the background versus something that really affects them emotionally and artistically. And it definitely wasn't just a background for you growing up. For me, it was something you committed yourself to and spent 45 minutes listening to that artist. You didn't have the TV on or weren't sitting there on your phone. When I make an album, I do it for my 10-year-old self who would have listened front to back. I don't have a desire to make a song or two, here or there. I have to have something to say. That's what inspires me. That's what gives me my why. Even if I'm the guy yelling at clouds, I don't care. I still believe if you're going to be a longtime artist in the business and have a loyal fan base who you can play to in your 20s and your 50s, you have to build your career around albums. The French horn that segues into 'Evangeline' sounds like an homage to the Rolling Stones' 'You Can't Always Get What You Want.' Is it? (Laughs) Two things I didn't see coming on this album were the French horn and the flute! Yeah, there's a lot of Stones and a lot of The Band, who I also love. A lot of the music on this record comes from the Stagecoach show last year, when instead of a regular show, it was just me and a choir. It might not have been the exact spot for it, but also the perfect spot because it got the biggest megaphone and was a one-of-a-kind show. At a festival where a lot was about 30,000 TikTokers and the whole 'look at me' stuff, we wanted to do something that would last for fans, and that's when I started thinking about the orchestral parts for the album. The enjoyment I got from that show was really doubling down on creativity. The more success you have, the more rope you have and I believe in using every strand of that rope. You wrote 'Johnny' after the Covenant School shooting in Nashville in 2023. Do you ever worry what some in your fan base will think about songs that take a stand against anything to do with guns? No. I've been very upfront about this. I'm an artist who played the deadliest mass shooting in history in Vegas (2017's Route 91 Harvest Festival, where 60 people were killed and more than 400 injured), and we lost a lot of fans at that. I own guns and am a Second Amendment guy, but I never really had a viewpoint one way or another until Vegas. When you leave something like that, it changes your viewpoints. I'm still a Second Amendment guy, but when it came to 'Johnny' and school shootings, I've always said about the Vegas shootings, those wounds don't heal, they scab over. When something else happens – and it is inevitable ‒ it rips the scabs off and they bleed again. And 'Johnny' came to you after dropping your sons (Boone, now 13, and Tennessee "Hawk", now 10) off at school? The school they go to is a mile from Covenant and the hardest thing I've ever done is drop them off the day after the shooting. I remember pulling off in the parking lot after they got out and I sat there and didn't want to leave. I looked to my left and to my right and there were four or five other parents doing the same thing. There was a helplessness and fear to that. As fate would have it, 'The Devil Went Down to Georgia' was on the radio and the lyric that jumped out at me was, 'Johnny rosin up your bow and play your fiddle hard because hell has broke loose in Georgia and the devil deals the cards. If you win, you get this shiny fiddle made of gold. If you lose, the devil gets your soul.' I remember thinking, if it were only true that the devil was just in Georgia, but he's everywhere, wreaking havoc. Johnny kept rolling through my head, how we need that hero to fight the devil, and I went home and the song just fell out of me. More: Bryan Adams on new tour with Pat Benatar, 'the power' of Tina Turner and his rescue dog I'm sure it will resonate with a lot of people. I think it's my job. I'm not an overly political person. Politics, in general, bore me. It's nonsense and chaos and makes my eyes and ears bleed, no matter what side you're on. My viewpoints, a lot of times, are derived from things I've experienced and I did play Vegas and had fans killed and then played the Grand Ole Opry three days later and left seats open in memory of them. I've had those personal moments of loss and hurt, and when something else happens, like Covenant, the emotion was a little deeper and I was back in that same spot. You wrote 'Darkest Hour' before Hurricane Helene devastated part of your home state of North Carolina last year, but immediately released it and directed all royalties from the song to those affected. What was it like for you to play the benefit Concert for Carolina in October? We still spend half our year in North Carolina and the community we were in was destroyed. We had just recorded the song and I felt that this needs to be out now. So we gave it to the people in perpetuity and that led to the concert, which is the most important musical thing I've done as far as concerts. The emotion of that night, the artists who came together, the quality of the music for 80,000 people … that's when music is at its best, when it's making a difference.
The Guardian
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
How to Fight Loneliness review – death hovers over impossibly awkward social gathering
Neil LaBute has a good relationship with Park theatre. Two years ago, it staged a production of The Shape of Things that worthily showcased his downright disturbing comedy. Now it premieres his latest work, a contemplative three-hander about our right to choose the time and manner of our death. LaBute was inspired to write it after losing his mother. His inability to help her out of her pain manifests itself in the story: here he fastens the dilemma he faced on the characters of Jodie, who can't face another round of chemotherapy, and her husband, Brad, who wants her to go on fighting. We meet them at home as they wait tensely – words skirting wide circles around both the subject and their emotions – for the arrival of someone they hope will 'help them out'. The good samaritan is Tate Miller, a former classmate of Jodie with a DUI and assault charge against him. In Lisa Spirling's production, the impossibly awkward social gathering becomes fodder for LaBute's typically mordant humour. It also subverts our moral quandary: the seemingly roughneck Tate is, in a magnetic performance by Morgan Watkins, a kinder and more empathic man than the one who loves Jodie so much he refuses to let her go. LaBute can be a master at challenging assumptions, and deadly-deft with a plot twist. But the one-track narrative does him no favours here: instead of dramatic progress we get expository monologues and a repetitive discussion of the issues. Archie Backhouse is taut and haunted as Brad but it's a struggle for Justina Kehinde to colour in Jodie – we don't see much more of her than her pain and frustration. Mona Camille's design renders the cinematic quality of a second act, set in a desolated highway location. But even that ominous night-time backdrop, with death hovering in the wings – can't sharpen its edge. With nowhere to go, the hyper-real dialogue winds in ever tighter circles that boil down to one of Meat Loaf's most famous lyrics: he would do anything for love, but he won't do that. At Park theatre, London, until 24 May
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Jimmy Kimmel ‘Can't Help' but Enjoy the ‘Confederacy of Dunces Running This Country' After Signal Chat Fiasco
Jimmy Kimmel was, like a lot of people, interested in the news this week that Trump administration officials openly discussed apparently classified military plans in a group chat on the encrypted messaging app Signal — a chat that included Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. But because of the details about how such a huge screw-up happened, Kimmel confessed during his monologue on Tuesday that he was actually enjoying it. 'Quick question for the audience – did anyone else get a group chat invite from the National Security Adviser today? Just me?' Kimmel joked. 'I know we shouldn't enjoy the fact that we have a confederacy of dunces running this country. But I'll be honest. I can't help it. I'm enjoying it right now.' 'This week, in the race between dumb and evil, dumb's in the lead! Dumb has a big lead!' Kimmel said with glee. The ABC host then caught his audience up on the details about the ongoing scandal — specifically how Goldberg was invited to the Signal chat by Trump National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, how the chat included Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and more. Who spent days talking about plans to bomb Yemen, and also talking smack about American allies — while unaware Goldberg could see it all. 'And just to add another 'also' to the mix, one of the people on the chain – was in Russia at the time of the texts,' Kimmel explained. 'Not that they would ever try to look at those, but, so you would think, one would think that the administration would say, 'hey, oops, we screwed up,' and hold the people accountable. Oh, that's where you would be very wrong.' Kimmel noted how the Trump administration's response has been to deny the facts, downplay the risks associated with the breach, and also smear Goldberg. This enabled Kimmel to talk about how nearly everyone who participated in the chat previously criticized Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server when she was Secretary of State. 'In any other world, these people would be fired or worse for something like this. Instead, they keep saying, 'oh this information wasn't even classified,' as if they wanted people to know about it,' Kimmel added. He then ran clips demonstrating this. Eventually Kimmel mentioned how Trump himself has weighed in — and downplayed the matter considerably. 'What happened to this guy? He used to fire people on a daily basis. He fired Meat Loaf for less than this,' Kimmel joked. 'Firing used to be his favorite thing. It's kind of sad. He's like an old dog who doesn't chase the ball anymore.' You can watch the whole monologue below: The post Jimmy Kimmel 'Can't Help' but Enjoy the 'Confederacy of Dunces Running This Country' After Signal Chat Fiasco | Video appeared first on TheWrap.
